Mom's 50th Birthday

Every year for my Mom's birthday my family goes to Ocean Shores. This year there were about 15 people there because it was my Mom's 50th Birthday. You can see her here with her Birthday cake.

Like always we packed up all the cars full of crap and headed out to the Ocean on Friday morning. Once we were down there, we spent almost the entire time on the beach. While playing on the beach of course no one went hungry. My parents brought two BBQs, a picnic table, and 6 coolers full of food and drinks. We had ribs, clams, pizza, corn, smoked salmon, and plenty of snacks. In between meals we found plenty of time to go boogie boarding, golf, play Frisbee, fly kites and play in the sand. We really lucked out and had great weather for a couple of days, which doesn't happen to often at the ocean.

And of course at night there was a trip to the Quinalt Casino. Eric and I played Black Jack. But the big winner on the night was my uncle Jerry who won $95 on the quarter slot machines.

It was really a great trip. Check out the rest of the pictures.

The Gang

Here The Gang that made the trip.

(Left to Right)

Back: J.J., Dustin, Wes, Ashley, Zayne, Jerry, Eric, Tony, Carol, Taylor, Dean

Front: Christy, Doris, Ryan.

Taylor Rose Playing in the Sand

This is my cousin Taylor Rose. My Aunt Carol and Uncle Jerry adopted her last fall. She is the cutest thing ever. I am so glad that she was able to come along. She was definitely the center of attention the entire trip.

She had a great time chasing the seagulls, watching the horses walk along the beach, and she really like the stunt kite. Here she is rolling around in the sand. She was totally posing for the camera in all of these pictures. Isn't she just adorable.

Zena Princess Warrior

Yes this is Ryan (my younger brother Wes' good friend). Every year we bury him in the sand as something. Last year he was the lady on the bow of a boat. Two years ago he was one of the heads in Mount Rushmore. And three years ago he was Homer Simpson.





Of course I had plenty of help in doing this. Christi braided grass to make the braids in his hair and found the grass that he is holding as a weapon. Zayne (my second cousin), supplied the shield, which is actually his skim board which he made with his dad. And thanks to J.J., Dustin, Ashley, Zayne, and Wes we dug some huge holes to get all of the sand to bury Ryan.


Even though we torture Ryan every year, he keeps coming back. I don't know if he likes it, or just humors us because we always serve really good food on the trip and he just doesn't want to miss out.

Skim Boarding

Every year we go to Ocean Shores we do a lot of boogie boarding, but this year we had couple of skim boards, so the guys did a lot of skim boarding. If you don't know what skim boarding is, it is kind of obvious from the name and the pictures. You skim across the top of shallow water. It is fun, but really hard to do. You need really good balance to do it well. You can see Wes gliding across the water in the picture to the above.




But by far the best skim boarder was Zayne.




Him and his dad (which is my cousin Toliver), made a skim board at home. They cut it out, sanded it and then painted it. It's really cool actually, and worked really well.

Frisbee Marathon

The was definitely a lot of Frisbee going on during the trip. You see the guys playing flyers up in the water. It was pretty fun. But it was nothing compared to the marathon of Frisbee that was played the day before. Tony (my older brother), Christi (my cousin), and Ashley (my cousin J.J.'s girlfriend) played Frisbee for about two hours straight. Not only that, but the wind was so strong that their record before dropping the Frisbee was only two times around the circle. I guess it was fun though.

Eric

Just Hanging Out

(left) Dean.
(right) Taylor Rose playing in the sand.

(left) Jeff & Paula. (right) Wes & Zayne hanging around the campfire.

Enjoying the Water

(above) Jerry taking Taylor in the water.

(right) Dustin & Taylor. (left) Taylor, Jerry, Carol, Ashley, J.J., Doris, & Dean.

(right) Eric taking a dip. (left) Wes drenched from Skim boarding.

Eric's 20 Year Reunion

This summer was Eric's 20 year reunion. The had a 2-day event which included going to West-5 in a restaurant in West Seattle, a picnic at Jenson Park, Golfing, and the big party at Barnworks. Eric and all of his classmates had a blast. They had a really great turnout. I think that %80 of this classmates were there. Usually only %25 of people from a class return to their 20-year reunion. Everyone reminisced about the old days, and caught up on what is going on now. They had tons of pictures all over the place. Some of them were quite hilarious. Things were a lot different in 1985. I have included some pictures that you might think are funny.

Girls from the Class

Guys from the Class

Class of 1985

Eric's Senior Photo

Most Athletic

Future Superintendents School/Iron Work?

Tennis Team

Seniors ... tennis team.

Tennis Team at Districts

District Champs

Eric Wrestling

I'm gonna get that guy.

Last Day of School

Lyle Daniels' Class on the last day of school.

Wildfires

I had a couple of people ask me if our property is near the fires over in Eastern Washington. The answer is yes. The fire that is closest to us is called the Dirty Face. You can see the general area on the map to the right. The website I found this on is in the links section of our site. It is called "Northwest Wildfires" It has a bunch more information on the current wildfires. It really helped me out because it gave the latitude and longitude of the fire. That was the only way I could tell exactly where the fires were, because you certainly can't tell by looking at this general of a map. So I put the latitude and longitude into Mapquest, and made my own map. Which is shown below.

Our property is about 15-20 miles from the fire. The fire covers 1.8 square miles, and is 80 percent contained, so for now I think we are OK. Of course, we knew that wildfires would be an issue when we bought property in the area. In 1995, there was a really big fire that ran right through the Eniat River Valley. As you are driving up the road to our property there are charred trees covering the mountain sides. The developers of our property actually took action to prevent the fire from spreading into our area. There were a few lots down the river (Lots 1 & 2) that have a few burnt trees on them, but it did not make it as far as our property (Lot 9). We are very lucky.

The developer saw wildfires as a problem and therefore put in fire hydrants throughout the area, cleared a fire road, and even purchased a fire engine. Anyone who becomes a volunteer fire fighter for Chelan County can use the fire engine. Eric and Tony have discussed this being a possibility. We have been discussing ways that we might build a house that is somewhat fire resistant. The guys feel that a concrete house might be the best way to go. I am not quite sure about this, but they do outnumber me. I wonder where they got this idea? Oh yeah, Eric builds with rebar for a living, and Tony's job is cutting concrete. Oh well. We don't plan on building right away, so I guess that is still up for debate.